‘Have you seen that giant sea monster that looks like Richard Branson on the beach?’

That’s what locals in Bournemouth might be saying after the Godzilla-like statue appeared emerging from the sea this morning.

The eight metre tall (25ft) figure was erected overnight to the east of Bournemouth Pier as part of a Virgin Media PR stunt.

The sea creature was built to celebrate the launch of Virgin Media’s Big Kahuna quad-play bundle (Picture: David Parry/PA)

Stunned passer-by Alex Borland joked to the Bournemouth Echo: ‘For a moment I thought we were being invaded.’

It took a team of sculptors took more than 500 hours to design and produce the creature which weighs over six tonnes.

Richard Branson dressed up as a female flight attendant after losing a bet (Picture: AFP/Getty)

Virgin Media created the creepy tribute to its media mogul boss to promote its new Big Kahuna quad-play bundle offering TV, broadband, landline phone and mobile as part of a value package.

The giant statue carries a TV, laptop, phone and mobile (Picture: David Parry/PA)

Richard Larcombe from Virgin Media said: ‘We wanted our market-beating quad-play bundle to make a big entrance so naturally we thought what better way than having a giant Big Kahuna monster literally bringing it to the shores of the UK.’